Location data from a mobile device can be used for numerous applications. There are applications that use the location data for locating friends, playing games, and assisting a user with directions. The location data can also be used to alert a user when the user and the user's device are in the vicinity of a point of interest (“POI”). A POI is any business, institution, or other location that would be of interest to a user or for which the user may have a coupon or other offer.
In an example, a user may choose to be alerted every time the user nears a particular store or restaurant, or the server may identify a POI as a nearby store that the user frequents and that is currently offering a promotion or coupon. This alert is an example of geo-fencing. A geo-fence is a virtual perimeter or zone for a real-world geographic area. A geo-fence could be dynamically generated—as in a radius around a store or point location. When the location-aware user computing device user enters or exits a geo-fence, the device receives a generated notification. The geo-fence notice might be sent to a user computing device.
Unfortunately, POI information is constantly changing. New stores are built, promotions are updated, and the user location changes. A user may desire constantly updated POI information, but the mobile devices are not typically capable of maintaining a database of all the POIs and POI marketing data. Trying to maintain this data may have an adverse effect on the data storage capacity of the device, the battery life of the device, the required data transmission capacity, or other aspects of operating a mobile device.
Conversely, monitoring the location of the user device by the server and continually providing updates with POI data as the mobile device changes locations also adversely affects the battery, storage capacity, and data transmission capacity of the device.
Additionally, conventional geo-fence alerts provide the same alert to a user whenever the user enters the proximity of a point of interest. The alert can become a nuisance if the point of interest is in a location that the user passes often. For example, the point of interest may be located next to the home or office of the user. The user might enter the geo-fence perimeter of the point of interest many times during a single day. Receiving an alert every time the user passes the point of interest may cause the user to ignore alerts or even delete the point of interest.